Phoenix 09 … and more dog! (Plus, furniture!)

OK, a fair amount will be covered in this post. But don't worry, most of it is dog-related.

This past weekend we were off in Phoenix for our annual visit to the Phoenix Comicon. As usual, we traveled with Pete and Paul, but this year were also joined by Jamie. We were not, however, joined by our new comic which was supposed to arrive from the printer; not pointing fingers yet, just trying to figure out what happened.

Anyway, that's Pete, Monica, and Jamie in the photo above. Workin' the table, as they did all weekend. Paul was workin' the easel, doing caricatures. It was another successful outing for us, at least as good as last year — which, in this economy, is good enough. The extra full day on Friday did nothing for us, but didn't really affect our plans, since Monica carved out some time it to make it to IKEA.

The weather seemed to be beautiful, not that we saw any of it. But it was nice in those mornings, not like the sub- or near-freezing it's been here. This trip is always a welcome break; next year, however, it moves to Memorial Day weekend. It'll be a bigger venue, promises to be a different kind of event, and we'll be there — but we're going to miss this late winter outing.

Anyway, enough of that. What's the dog been up to?



The Saturday before, we headed to Teca Tu for GCNM's monthly "adoption clinic." Seems to be one official representative of the group at these events, but several other owners tend to show up, hang out, and visit with the other Greys. It was a tangled, happy furry mess.


Cheyenne, representing.

  
Wendy just liked leaning; Godiva, everybody's buddy, makes a new friend; Nina! (Click for larger.)

Cheyenne was well behaved, if more than a bit standoffish. She had no problem with the other dogs, she just felt no particular urge to interact with them. She just preferred to take over Godiva's bed and stay there.



Wrapped up and headed home to take delivery of our new table from Jim, custom-made for the fireplace room. Stacy helped with the delivery and got to meet — and be smitten by — Cheyenne; so, when they invited us over to dinner the following night, she was more than willing to include the dog.

Their dog, Brenda Lee, was, like Stacy and Jim, a great host. She wasn't territorial at all and, though Cheyenne was again not the most social, they got along fine.



In fact, they just kind of bonded over watching the food.



The next day, we both had off for the holiday. In preparation for the Phoenix outing, we'd made arrangements for Cheyenne to stay with Kathy, the Santa Fe representative of GCNM (and the one who conducted our interview).

Kathy lives outside of town. With two "failed fosters" of her own, Gandalf and Shu-Shu. And one "unadoptable" Greyhound, Heidi. And another dog. Plus, like, four cats. And then she was going to be sitting for two other Greys that weekend. We had to see how they would all interact. Well enough, it turns out, to be invited back, though she did seem to view the cats as some sort of chew toy.

As it turns out Cheyenne did just fine on her weekend away. The cats were locked away in their room to remove any temptation, and all the dogs worked out their relationships. Cheyenne even got to be good buddies with one of the other visiting dogs, actually playing, we're told, and getting along with the whole pack. Our worry was that she would want to stay there, but she didn't seem to object to coming back home with us.

That Sunday we returned, there was an article in the Journal North about Kathy and the new GCNM project, Greyhome.